


every time I try to take it back

by Taste_of_Suburbia



Series: Climb Up Above Your Precious Time [1]
Category: The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Captivity, Depression, Dreamscapes, Dreamsharing, Family, Fear, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Anguish, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Resurrection, Spells & Enchantments, Temptation, Trapped, h/c_bingo, hostages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 07:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28467822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia
Summary: You’re alive because of me, dear Wilhelm.No, I’mdamnedbecause of you.
Series: Climb Up Above Your Precious Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085234
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11





	every time I try to take it back

**Author's Note:**

> Written for h/c_bingo for the prompt brainwashing / deprogramming.

[ _where did you go, where did you hide_ ]

* * *

Will’s dreams were haunted with bleak visions of late: lands that would bear no fruit, mere killing fields of the crows; villages long since abandoned, their weathered facades beaten further down under a nameless storm; horrors creeping whenever a back was turned, the fragility of a soul exposed, an ancient power spilling tantalizing words like a fountain of renewed life, so achingly bright one could not peer beneath its luxurious exterior.

_You haven’t finished the spell, my sweet prince._

He shuddered, threw a hand over his mouth to shield himself from her kiss just as much as preventing bile from slipping out. It was a world left cold by her and yet she was the only warmth, the sole draught for a dying man, the sugar she exuded a necessary poison. Her lies were crafted cleverly to sound like sacred truths, the secrets to her universe, the answers to this magic he longed so feverishly to understand.

Will could have no more, drunk on her as he selfishly was. He heaved away his broken heart until the effort nearly tore him asunder, stumbled, slipped off the edge of her earth and fell, dazed and bruised and crumbling, several times over in the slowest of lessons, pitifully rewound. His hands slipped in blood, _his_ blood, the grass cursed to glass, exposing her and _that_ familiar taunt, the only choice either to cut himself trying to part from her or save himself from ever being trampled by such spiteful magic again.

_You’re alive because of me, dear Wilhelm._

_No, I’m_ damned _because of you._

She smiled sweetly, _perfectly,_ fingers brushing the length of his temple though moving no closer. It was as if she was so sure he would come to her, beg her for an unfinished kiss, the one that would instill new life within him, a life she could control.

_Because it isn’t control you want, sweetling. No, you want to be controlled, no more worry, no more magic. I am here and this is real, this is better than Jacob’s beans, oh, so much sweeter._

_Beans… Jake…_

He had never asked Jake what had shattered the queen, though the beginning of her initial end had begun with faith, his own, enough to still his hand, enough to pull him back to give Jake room for what he needed to do, enough so that the blade puncturing him with its twisted flavor of finality hadn’t its full impact, hadn’t been able to tear them apart before Will had had a chance to say what he needed to say.

That the key wasn’t in his brother’s then lost book, it was in his head, in his heart.

And Will had to let go, let go so that he could _soar._

Then _she_ had cut her way through, her beauty belying none of its venom, the sheer ferocity of her desires seeming so reasonable, her skin so softly pale and bloodless and dragging him under the bosom of a starless night, her eyes piercing him with a cruel intent disguised as saccharine promises.

She was the cure for all that ailed him… no, the toxin that boiled his blood… no, the remedy sating his long-held reservations, the benediction on his tongue… the effortless, effervescent, enigmatic _yes._

‘Don’t look her in the eyes.’ An insistent hand coaxing him back, his entire being now closed to anyone but her.

_You should have thought of that before you impaled me, brother._

_No harm shall ever befall you, my prince._

_Yes, my queen… she is all there is. All that is good and pure and with all the power within me, I will serve._

He was in her hands now and _oh,_ how she could be _merciful._ Her hands cupped his face and he could fall into her, shut his eyes against the parts of himself that had been leisurely dying for ages, and somewhere back where he could no longer see there was Jake screaming, sobbing, pleading, an apology too late, a past too painful to carry, a faith buried under an onslaught of indifference.

‘You’re just scared,’ the weight of that accusation, the truth of it lobbed against him long before Angelika had her turn, beaten down upon him by the world.

Just _scared? I’m terrified._

He burrowed deeper, where his brother had let him fall, where his brother could no longer reach.


End file.
